TonyE

HCE - 2010.007 - 2010/10/23 =========================== - Chg:B179 GE Recon subtype planes will now turn their radars on at or shortly after launch. It was disabled in 2004 (thanks Akmatov) http://harpgamer.com/harpforum/index.php?a...amp;showbug=179 - Chg:0000 GE Increase from 1 to 4 group windows. More importantly includes underlying logic to manage detections per side. As for testing, perhaps for now just reply to this thread with screenshots and examples and such. There will be a bunch of stuff that doesn't work right. Also note that saves from prior versions will not work in this version and I won't guarantee at this point that saves with this build or new future ones will work in future builds either. It other words, keep your 2010.006 or whatever you were using around for a while and run it in parallel with this. To that end, note that the GE in the zip has the name Winharp32sides.exe.

More progress last night, added UI controls and logic for the player to select the 'perspective' of each group window. Assume you're a beta tester playing the blue side and want to see if Red has detected you. Well, set one of the group windows to the RED perspective and you'll see that information. This goes hand in hand with the big changes under-the-hood, actually tracking each side's detection status in relation to each of the other sides. Until now it was almost purely a Player vs AI affair (aka FriendlySide/EnemySide) that made it difficult to impossible to sort out the goings on. Now assume the beta testers have helped work most of the kinks out. Maybe now you can work on a toggle switch to turn the AI on and off for each side. Maybe if you turn it off for both sides Brad can finally run his CPX using HC. Brad's CPX: 1. Players relay commands to Brad via some chat mechanism or e-mail. 2. Brad runs the game, entering orders for both sides (he's in part an umpire, in part the entire staff below you the commander, and part data entry specialist). 3. We as players rejoice. But except for the beta testing part, that is all still a long ways off. I'm hoping to post a semi-playable beta by the end of next week.

Am I the only one who dreams of plotting his TLAM courses in 3D thru canyons and such? Sheesh

That means you could get Rafales or Super Hornets flying off the new carrier. That's keeping a stiff upper lip! I'd better clarify; French Rafales and American Super Hornets. Nice bit of cross-decking could go on. I know we've seen shades of this but to have it be 'for real' is shocking. Let's hope some funds materialize to buy and operate some planes on that carrier.

Still plugging away when able and guess what, the GE runs again! It isn't playable but the attached screenshot from just now should hint at goodness to come.

What version are you running? The idea is 2009.042 available here at harpgamer in the Beta Testing/General/Current Files thread. That would be what most people around here would consider the latest release patch. That must be applied to 2008.044 or newer. If it is easy to reproduce, please do and create an Issue Report . Include the saved game at a point where I can follow your detailed instructions to reproduce the problem in 30 seconds or less . You do the hard part, I fix the problem.

Thank you for crafting your wishlist. We appreciate each and every user making one even if they all say exactly the same thing; then we know every wants the same thing! I like that H3 implemented the feature but I want to learn from the compromises they made (and to their credit they knew the compromises going in but wanted something rather than nothing). My opinion is that values from the database per loadout are limiting. At a minimum I'd like to see modifiers per airfield and at a maximum a whole lot more data points taken into effect. Please keep discussing!

While I agree in theory with what Brad said ... I have been tempted to dump the old battlesets and not worry about compatibility. Some of the changes we make to the game have database data dependencies and we have to 'fake' it and derive representative values for the legacy battlesets (pre-EC2003). That takes time and changes the way the scenarios play. Therein lies a purposeful design decision, that we want the legacy battlesets to run without crashing but that we won't make an undue effort to keep them playing like they may have played a decade or two ago. I still think it a very real possibility that we'll at some point ship a different game engine (GE/winharp32.exe) for the legacy battlesets and forget about that backward compatibility. Brad also very gently mentioned that this is a volunteer effort. We have 'real jobs' and do this for fun. That means there isn't enough time. Ideally a slew of players would step up and re-build the legacy scenarios. A few of us did just that for the USNI Battleset in the demo and I really like the result! That database (made by Brad/CV32) could be a nice foundation for remakes. I'd happily include such full remake battlesets in the game distribution as long as they keep a similar spirit to the originals.

How's that/those template(s) coming along?

Often the cause of such behavior is an empty group (a group with no units). You can open your scenario in the scenario editor and press the spacebar repeatedly to hop between groups. If one highlights that is off map or has no units try deleting the group. Rinse and repeat until the scenario loads in the game. Alternatively; send your scenario to hc3@harpgamer.com and we'll take a look to further diagnose.

Since Brad covered the straight factual reply I'll take the philosophical reply. AOEs and AORs slow down your carrier groups, making them much more vulnerable. They also raise questions of escort when they 'need' to detach and go refill themselves. Similarly landing ships make good targets The platforms, while not directly useful in the game, do complicate your job as a commander, especially when you place the value on them that the real militaries would.

Start with the game closed and run http://harpgamer.com/harpforum/index.php?a...mp;showfile=228 to reset window positions (pretty much for a 640x480 screen). Resize your main windows from there. If that doesn't suffice the next step is to change the window font size to 96dpi (i.e. not large fonts). That means smaller text but text that fits.

Nobody has, hence the nearly empty thread

Yes, wombat recently took a very nice set of photos and posted links in his Ship Photos thread. http://harpgamer.com/harpforum/index.php?s...ost&p=23442

Currently reading hardly applies... My girlfriend go me Dale Brown's Executive Intent from the library and it didn't last 36 hours before it was read and absorbed! If you like the Dale Brown approach you'll really like this one. It is relevant in the current China is to be feared and Russia is hiding something atmosphere

Such a thing is possible, yes, and won't prevent the exported database from working with HC.

Option 2 is in place for the next build.

Great

I can't find a thing but then I'm not very capable in this arena. Brad will be back in 5 days but hopefully someone will have opinions before then.

The PE works in Access 97 thru 2010 (I haven't updated the instructions for Access 2010 but the PE works there). Yep, all I want is the layout Also correct, pretty much only Brad and Rene have published databases. I started the fictional DB but Brad has done at least as much work in it as I have and it is in a woefully minimal state. I just don't seem to have the DB editing bug. It would be nice if more users shared their creations.

What I'm saying is that I'm happy to take your report template and create something that looks similar in the PE for everyone to use. You do the proposed layout and I make it happen in the PE. You'll want to be able to use the PE to understand the fields you can use on the template. Access is a touchy beast so I don't and won't take reports that users create and import them directly. I recreate them in my pristine copy of the PE using Access 97.

Updated... And this is why we don't like publishing our materials at other websites, they periodically get shuffled around and links break. http://harpgamer.com/harpforum/index.php?showtopic=2883

Thanks for making this and uploading it for all to play!

You can use it to edit HCE databases. You cannot create new Access databases with the runtime but you can edit HC databases. You also cannot report formats but I'll stress again a preference for creating your report template in Word/Open Office Writer/etc. and sending it along for me to build into the PE for everyone to use.

Please see http://harpgamer.com/harpforum/index.php?showtopic=9797 . It is a fair bit of reading but I think you'll get the salient points quickly.